The few times I have tried a more impressive game on my phone, my overriding thought is ‘why am I not playing this on my PC?’. Phone controls, screen size, and processing power suck, so all but the simplest games meant to hold your attention while you are waiting at a doctor’s office don’t optimally work there. And for a doctor’s office lobby, I want something I can have fun within seconds of starting and feel satisfied with only minutes of play.
I jumped over to the App Store the second Hades was announced, fully willing to pay full price, even though I could easily get the game for 30% cheaper on Steam.
Subscription required.
Fuck. That.
Are they still on that Game Center shit? That thing can fuck off.
Who wants to play these monsters that suck out your battery in minutes on such a small screen? There are many great games on phones but they are not graphically impressive or huge in scale. They are 2D, control with one finger and get you in and out in seconds.
Let’s see:
- There is already Steam for Mac, which a great catalog and sales.
- The only appeal of an App Store game is cross-platform… in Apple devices.
- Consoles (with controls) are cheaper than any Apple product compatible with AAA games. (This includes the Steam Deck).
- There are no platform-selling exclusives.
- There is no exclusive hardware features.
- Major most-played games are not available OOTB: PUBG, Roblox, Rocket League, Genshin Impact, Apex Legends, Call of Duty, CSGO2.
Yeah, I get the sentiment: why. But Apple has to start with something, and if they want people to buy games they will need a bigger catalog, and for that they need to keep their porting tools easier to implement.
Mario run did it great, Pokémon go did it good. Normal Pokémon games and old final fantasy games work too, since it’s not time sensitive. Tilting games work on phones, maybe driving games. But that’s about it. While it may be possible to display all 13 buttons of a controller on a phone screen, it’s just… you can only press 1 direction and 1 button at the same time, no shoulder buttons AND face button.
They should make Kirby and the magic brush or something like that on phones.
Didn’t apple add support for controllers a couple years ago? Maybe I’m misremembering, but why isnt that a bigger deal for people who want to play serious games?
If I need the controller to play in the first place, why not play on the TV?
When I’m on the go I rarely take a controller + clip or a clippable controller with me.
When I was a cab driver, I would have had a controller with me in my bag and position the phone on the wheel in a comfy position while gaming.
I use my iPhone with a Bluetooth controller all the time for Moonlight game streaming when my wife or son are using the TV or we’re out of the house. That works just fine. Playing games on a phone isn’t that terrible at all - with the right input method. I’m admittedly considering going for a Pro on my next upgrade, just for the additional screen size for text legibility in some games. And it’s also not my first choice.
However, I’m not about to buy AAA titles on the App Store where I’ll only be able to play the game on my phone…
I really, really don’t want to play AAA games on a touchscreen.